


pommes de glace

by cerie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Forced Marriage, antagonist!daenerys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 16:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17707829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: Jon/Sansa, alluded to previous Jon/Daenerys. Daenerys has overstayed her welcome at Winterfell preparing for war with Cersei in the south and tensions between Sansa, Jon and Daenerys are brought to a head.Weirdly inspired bythis news storyabout the polar vortex causing ice shaped like apples to hang on the trees.





	pommes de glace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/gifts).



Sansa had hoped that Daenerys would leave them alone after seeing the end of the Night’s King but that was too good to be true. Daenerys wanted Winterfell’s armies to back her up in a war against Cersei in spite of Jon’s counsel on the matter. Sansa, meanwhile, was given only a courtesy seat on this war council; she supposed it was stingily given solely to appease Jon. Being Lady of Winterfell seemed to carry no weight with Daenerys ensconced within the castle and she demanded everyone defer to her. 

“A true queen wouldn’t need to demand obedience,” Sansa says bitterly one night. She means only for Arya to hear it, perhaps Brienne, but it’s Jon who picks up the poisonous thread of conversation and gives her a dark look. She knows he’s fond of Daenerys in some way but she hasn’t determined what, exactly, their relationship is. He’s been told she’s his aunt and while Daenerys herself seems determined to bring Jon under the Targaryen banner, Jon seems to be resisting it. 

“Daenerys has done nothing but help us, Sansa. Mind your tongue.” Sansa presses her lips together until they blanch and curtsies quickly. “As my lord commands,” she says, though it’s acid instead of honeyed sweet. Arya follows quickly behind and it’s only when Sansa reaches her chambers (her temporary chambers, mind, as her own have been given to the glorious Queen Daenerys) that she lets out the vitriol she’s been holding in.

“I really hate that woman,” she says. Arya lets a huff and perches on a mahogany dresser, looking for all the world like some sort of sprite from Old Nan’s tales. Arya always looks like she’s about to disappear in a cloud of smoke. She draws out her dagger under the auspices of cleaning it and casts a low look at Sansa. 

“You just don’t like her because she’s like you. You’re not used to having someone prettier than you around.” Sansa’s cheeks go hot and she slams her hand down against the dresser, enough to make Arya jump a little. Sansa’s anger these days is mostly a cold removed thing and to be so hot about something is almost like when she was younger and Arya would pull her hair or steal her dolls. In those days, Sansa would very much be angry about being upstaged by a prettier girl. Now, though, it’s different. Sansa is a self-possessed woman. She shouldn’t be so angry about a self-declared Queen wanting to, well, be a Queen.

“It’s not that, Arya. I’m past such things. She just cannot come into Winterfell, into _our_ home and demand that it is hers. She can’t.” Arya flips down off the dresser and cants her head back toward the door. 

“I hate to say this, Sansa, but she already has. She’s sleeping in your bed, she’s seated on your seat in the Great Hall...I wouldn’t be surprised if she decided she was just going to stay here. After all, Winterfell’s been built back up and as far as I know, King’s Landing is a mess after Cersei blew up part of it. And there’s Jon, too.” 

Sansa rolls her eyes and lifts her hands up to smooth her hair. “Well, I won’t let her do this. Jon’s our family and he was _ours_ before he was ever hers. Winterfell belongs to the Starks. We’ll deal with her intrusion long enough for her to stage an attack on King’s Landing and then we will not be dealing with her again.” 

Sansa leaves the room in a rustle of skirts and her face is pinked with anger again; it’s so very unlike her.

***

Sansa doesn’t immediately go back to the council room. Instead, she goes and tacks up a horse and rides out to the Wolfswood. It’s not something she’d have done as a child but since Jon’s return to Winterfell, he’d insisted on every woman and child being able to do something to defend themselves. Arya is already clever with a sword and with a knife. He’d given Sansa a knife, only for her to cut herself on it, and had given her a bow instead. A bow, after all, could be used for feeding people and not just to kill or maim. It would also allow her to stay some distance away.

Sansa’s face grows hot as she remembers Jon teaching her how to draw the bow, how he’d pressed against her body and adjusted her aim. He’d been her half-brother then and it’d been illicit and wrong. He’s her cousin in truth, so it’s not truly illicit, but does Jon feel that way? Or is he enamored of Daenerys? Daenerys certainly seems interested in him. Sansa pushes the thought from her mind and concentrates on riding, pushing deep into the woods.

This late in winter, the game is scarce. Most of the good grass has already been eaten and it’s hard for animals to find anything to forage upon. She cannot recall the last time she saw anything larger than a hare (which she’d managed to shoot but not cleanly; it’d broken her heart to have to use her knife to finish it). She hears a rustling, though, and it’s promising. She dismounts and moves through the woods silent as she can, breath coming in sharp pants when she sees what it is. 

It’s a bear. It’s been lured out of hibernation somehow and Sansa wonders if it’s because spring is on the way; why else would a bear be awake in the dead of winter when there’s no fish to be had and no honeycomb to steal? She swallows thickly and draws an arrow with clumsy, shaking hands. She’s not good at this. She really only gets one shot at it and, even still, she cannot bring it back. She’ll have to tell the men whereabouts she is and have them come and retrieve it. 

Sansa takes the shot and the bear roars, advancing on her. Her horse spooks and flees and Sansa lies as still as she can, hoping the wounded bear won’t kill her. He smacks her with a paw and it hurts but she tries to remember what all the men have told her about hunting: don’t move. It will leave her alone eventually. It feels like an eternity but the bear finally pulls away from her and goes the other way. Sansa keeps her eyes trained above her and tries not to cry or scream. 

Above her, the trees are filled with ice the shape of apples. Ghost apples, Old Nan had called them, the only thing that winter harvest brings. The freeze had come before the last of the apples had been harvested and when the apple rotted away, the ice remained. Sansa feels like one of these ghost apples. She’s the form of Sansa on the outside, the perfect Lady of Winterfell, but inside she feels hollow. 

It’s an age before she feels safe enough to try and walk. Her side aches and a cursory examination shows that it’s bleeding; she thinks she must have broken or at least bruised her ribs, too. Arya would have slain the bear and brought it back on her own. Daenerys has dragons. Sansa has nothing except empty flattery and hollow beauty. She doesn’t even have the sense to not shoot a bear.

She’s travelled these paths before so getting back home isn’t the problem. The problem is that she has no horse and a half a day’s journey in the weak winter morning has now become a whole day’s journey with night approaching. Still, she must try. She walked all the way from Winterfell to Castle Black with worse injuries than these. She can manage this walk. She can eat snow for water and there might be berries here or there. Besides, she’s hungered for longer than a day. 

The sun is long gone down when she sees it, the roar of dragonfire over her head and the faint white mark of Daenerys Targaryen perched between the wings of the beast Drogon. Jon is behind her and she hears Daenerys’ voice ring out: “There she is, Jon, we’ve found her! We’ve found Lady Sansa!” 

The dragon lands and Jon runs to her, crushing Sansa to him in a hug. He doesn’t even speak, really, only murmurs soothing things against her hair while he clings to her as if he’s lost the most precious thing he’s ever held in his hands and only just gotten it back again. Sansa selfishly enjoys the attention, even while perturbed that Daenerys had been the one to spot her and save her from her own stupidity. 

“Why did you come out here? Your horse came back without you.” Sansa gives him a weak smile and pulls away, showing him the blood that’s stained his leathers from having hugged her. She would explain more, really, except it’s terribly cold and she’s trying to figure out if she has the constitution to fly upon the back of a dragon.

“Will he roast me, your Grace?” Sansa asks tremulously. Daenerys shakes her head, as if the very thing is absurd, and offers her hand to Sansa to help her mount the beast. It’s like something from a crib tale, all of this, and Sansa feels that it’s horrible of her to feel so uncharitable toward Daenerys. She did save her, after all. She saved them all. 

Sansa climbs atop the dragon and lightly touches her hands to Daenerys’ slim waist, wanting to hold on. She isn’t prepared for Jon to mount behind her and sling a powerful arm around her own waist and tug her back to rest against his chest. 

“I can stay on without needing to hold on to Daenerys. You can lean back against me, all right?” His voice is warm against her ear and ruffles her hair a bit. The only warm parts of her are where he’s touching her and she wonders if she’s not a ghost apple at all; is there something of warmth left in her, something only Jon can touch? Is it wrong of her to want it as much as she does?

***

The next several days, Sansa spends resting. There’s no news of the council for her ears, though Arya brings her what she’s been able to glean from loose lips. Daenerys seems to be gathering armies to go south and wants a tithe of men from Winterfell to join her host. Jon only wants the men who volunteer to go. They’ve fought and fought over it. Daenerys has legitimized Jon as Jon Targaryen and he doesn’t want to accept it. Daenerys has proposed marriage to Jon and he’s rejected it, saying he cannot marry his own aunt.

Daenerys finally, in a fit of apparent pique, demands something else of Jon. He will be legitimized as Jon Stark, King in the North, but he will be married to Sansa. Their firstborn child will be Daenerys’ heir. Jon balks at this most of all, Arya says. 

“He doesn’t want to do it. He says that Daenerys cannot take any of his children from him.” Sansa frowns a bit. The objection hadn’t been to marrying her but had been to giving up one of his children to Daenerys? That seems...odd. Sansa frowns a bit in thought and Arya jars her with an elbow. 

“He agreed to the marriage part because the alternative was you being married off to whatever lord wanted you,” Arya says succinctly. “And that the petitions would come through her and not through Jon. I’ve never seen him or Ghost so angry in my life. I thought they were going to kill her. I think she thought he’d go back on it and marry her, instead, but Jon doubled down. I don’t really think she’d have married you off. Not really. She’s a woman too. She knows what it’s like.” 

_No, but she also has two dragons,_ Sansa thinks warily. _And that’s enough for men not to push the issue of marriage on Daenerys Targaryen._ Her head is spinning with all of this and she has no idea how she’ll face Jon or Daenerys the next time she sees them. She’ll have to pretend she knows nothing of it, make her face a pretty, opaque mask that only gives the responses they want to hear. She’s very good at that. She can become porcelain again over the steel. 

“The next time Jon comes to see you, he’s probably going to propose,” Arya says. She wrinkles her nose a bit and shrugs one slim shoulder. “I think it’s disgusting, really, but you are his cousin. He’s not a bad man. If he doesn’t think about you as his sister, I guess it would work. Do you think about him as your brother now? I know you used to always say he was our bastard half brother when we were children.” 

Sansa hates that she had, really, when Jon has been more than a true brother to her throughout her entire life. She sighs a bit and smooths the edge of the furs that are piled upon her, shaking her head. No, she’s never really thought of Jon as her brother no more than she thought of Theon as her brother. They were never _brothers_ to her the way that Robb and Bran and Rickon were her brothers. It’s different. And now, after everything, she feels something else for Jon that seems to surface only at the most inopportune times. 

“No, Arya. I don’t think of Jon as our brother. I think of him as...something else. It’s complicated to explain, really, but it’d be the same as me marrying Theon. Before Theon did what he did, of course.” 

Sansa has forgiven Theon for his treachery a thousand times over but she knows the rest of her family hasn’t. Still, she had wondered as a child if her parents intended to match her to Theon. He was the heir to the Iron Islands, after all, and a handsome boy to her girlish eyes. Little else was needed or thought about until Joffrey had come to Winterfell. That Sansa is dead and gone, though, and a more brittle Sansa has replaced her. 

“Are you going to say yes?” Sansa nods her head. What choice does she have but to say yes, to accept the marriage with Jon? The alternative is being on the wrong side of a woman who wields dragons and uses them to roast people alive. The alternative is being married to whatever lord Daenerys picks for her whether she wants him or not. She’s a prize to be given away and Daenerys could spitefully give her to one of her Unsullied to ensure she never bears children or to one of her Dothraki to terrorize her. She could give her back to Tyrion Lannister who wouldn’t hurt her but Tyrion is a bitter man now, broken down by life, and Sansa doesn’t know if she can help him through it. 

“I have to say yes. I have to be the Stark in Winterfell. I can’t let it be taken from me. Still, Jon has to ask me himself. I will not have Daenerys Targaryen come to my sickbed and demand that I give her an heir by whatever means she wishes.” 

Arya leaves without saying anything else and Sansa collapses against the pillows, frustrated and in pain.

***

When the door pushes in later on, Sansa thinks it’s Arya again to pester her and she calls out, “I don’t want to hear it, Arya, if I’m going to have my fate decided by everyone other than me then let me find it out in my own way.” It isn’t Arya, though. It’s Jon and as the scent of him hits her, it kindles familiarity and warmth all over again. He smells like pine and leather and clean snow and she’s never smelled anything that made her feel so safe. He stands stiffly at the head of her bed and she props herself up to sit, even though it hurts.

“Why did you go out to the woods alone? If you wanted to hunt, you should have gone with the other hunters or with Arya.” His eyes are wounded. His eyes always look wounded, the softest brown fringed by long lashes, and Sansa wonders how her eyes look in counterpart. Cold as ice, she imagines. She imagines she gets mistaken for a wight more often than not. Still, that’s not the point. The point is Jon. 

“I wanted to do something of use,” Sansa says finally. “I feel so utterly useless now since Daenerys has taken over Winterfell to stage her war on Cersei and I feel like I mean nothing to our people. I feel like I mean nothing…” The words die in her throat but Sansa knows what they are; she feels like nothing to _him_ when Daenerys is around. Daenerys is the sort of woman who demands all attention upon her, the same as Cersei, and Sansa tries to say she doesn’t care about that but she does. She wants her people to look to her as capable leadership and she’s always being outshined by Jon or Daenerys or _someone else._

“Arya’s told you some of what’s been discussed, I suppose? Daenerys means to make an example of me for denying her what she wants and she’s decided to use you to make that example. If I don’t marry you, she’ll have someone in her Khalasar do it. She didn’t get to who she actually wanted for the job before I had my sword drawn but Jorah Mormont came to me afterward. He said that he’d offer for you and let you live here at Winterfell as Lady.” 

Sansa presses her lips together. Jorah Mormont is her father’s age and a slaver besides. She doesn’t particularly want to marry him, especially since she’s seen how his eyes trace Daenerys’ every step. She supposes he’d be better than some but he’s still not someone she’d choose. There’s no one left to choose. 

“Do you want that, Sansa? Jorah says he’s willing to...well, I told him he wasn’t allowed to touch you,” Jon says awkwardly. He’s playing with his hands a bit and fidgeting, which is quite unlike him. Baelish had taught her to notice things, to see what seems unusual even in a normal tableau and this is unusual. Jon Snow isn’t a man with idle energy to expend. In this, though, he seems quite nervous. 

“It’s not what I want, Jon. What I _want_ is for her to leave and let us just have the North the way we always have. We’ll give her men to help her fight but only the ones who want to go. We’ll send what provisions we can spare. She can always have bread and salt at Winterfell but I’m not her brood mare! I’m not...I don’t owe her my body for her help in the war. She’d have died against the Night King without us. She doesn’t get to demand what I do with my body. No one does.” 

Jon bites down hard on his lip and sits at the edge of the bed, reaching for one of Sansa’s hands. “She said that I could marry you and we’d have to give up an heir. I told her she wouldn’t take one of my children from me, ever, and I didn’t care if I was half Targaryen. I don’t want anyone else to marry you, Sansa. It’s selfish of me, aye, but there’s no one else I want to marry. I want to keep you safe. I’ve been feeling this way since before I went south, even, and it’s just so...it’s so confusing. Every time I fight it’s like something’s been roused up in me that’s never been there before - this burning desire to get back to you. I want marriage with you. I know I’m no poet, or anything, and we have to figure out what to do about Daenerys later but if you’ll have me, I’ll marry you.” 

Sansa is a bit stunned, all told. She hadn’t expected a proper proposal and this seems like something out of a gilded fantasy. Perhaps Arya had given Jon a hint that she’d only be receptive to him _asking_ her and Jon had remembered her fondness for the old stories. She squeezes his hand a bit and nods yes. She feels a bit less hollow when they touch, a bit less brittle, a bit less cold. 

“I’ll marry you. It’s just...with the wound, it’ll be a while. I broke three ribs according to Sam. It was probably foolish of me to try and shoot that bear but I wanted to do something useful. I wanted to provide for my people the way you fight for them and she fights for them and Brienne and Arya fight for them. I can’t fight. But I can keep people fed.” Jon brushes his mouth against her knuckles and lets her hand fall to the bed. 

“You can keep them fed without shooting a bear in the middle of winter. You keep them fed by being clever, Sansa. You inspire them to go fight. Mayhap you don’t carry a sword or ride a dragon but these men? They fight for _you_. They love you. I fight for you. So do Arya and Brienne. Gendry. Podrick. Must I go on listing the names of men who fight for you because they love you?” 

Sansa narrows her eyes at him and playfully slaps at his arm, much the same as she would with Arya. Somehow, though, it always feels different with Jon than with Arya and she’s gifted with a smile so brilliant that it seems to melt all the ice within her. Oh, but if the ice melts, is there enough of her left to carry on?

***

The day of the wedding is clear and cold. There’d been a hint of spring earlier in the week but it was swiftly put away by another chill more brutal than before. When night falls, there are torches lit in the Godswood and Sansa is in yet another wedding dress. She’d thought about marrying Jon in the black gown she’s favored all throughout the war but her ladies had fussed about that and said she couldn’t. Daenerys had offered her a length of white fur to use but Sansa had rejected it fearfully; later, she sends the Queen a note that it hadn’t been the gift that repulsed her but only the color, as it reminded her of Ramsay Bolton. In the end, she makes over one of her mother’s old dresses. It’s a deep blue, like the midnight sky, and her heavy Stark cloak feels right over it.

Jon exchanges her cloak for his own at the end of the ceremony, the one she’d made for him at Castle Black, and Sansa thinks she’s never felt so warm or so safe. He kisses her politely before the crowd and lifts her into his arms to carry her back into the Great Hall for the feast. Since they have been able to trade some little bit with Dorne and Casterly Rock, there’s more for the feast than just the things they can hunt. It’s nothing like a feast in King’s Landing, of course, and Arya jokes that Sansa’s bear would have tasted very good roasted over a spit. Sansa only doesn’t go after her for the joke because she’s the bride and it wouldn’t look very good for her to tussle with her sister at the high table. 

Daenerys is at Jon’s left, wearing her crown, but everyone seems to be paying more attention to Jon and Sansa. When the sweets are finally brought out, Sansa is pleased to see lemoncakes but surprised to see a confectionary of sugar the likes of which she’d not seen outside of King’s Landing. It seems like something fanciful from the Reach, not something they’d ever eat at Winterfell. 

It’s something made of spun glass, hollow little pears and apples and roses. A serving maid tells her that it’s all edible, too, and Sansa lifts one of the apples to share with Jon. It’s so like the ghost apples she’d seen in the wood that day but this, instead, is a wonderful confection that fills her with warmth and good spirits. 

“I saw ghost apples the day the bear attacked me,” Sansa says. “These taste how I imagined those did, at least in my mind.” Jon kisses her and kisses all the sweetness from her mouth, sending up a roar from the crowd. The men are demanding a bedding and Jon pulls away long enough to deny them their fun.

“No. No man will be bedding Sansa Stark but me.” There’s groans from the crowd but Jon lifts her to her feet and pulls her out of the crowded hall. They’re not even to her rooms before he’s pulled her into an alcove and kissed her again, unable to control himself.

***

Daenerys has graciously relinquished the lord’s chambers for their wedding night but they don’t end up using them. Neither do they use the rooms Sansa had borrowed, the ones where Arya perched on her dresser day and night to tell her what was happening in council when she was too injured to go. No, at the end of it they wind up in Jon’s rooms.

Jon’s rooms are sparse even if they are spacious and the bed is a bit smaller than the one in Sansa’s room. It means they’ll have to sleep much closer than they would but Sansa doesn’t think sleeping is going to be an issue. Currently, they’re having issues getting undressed because neither of them want to take their lips or hands off the other. 

It’s a strange dance they do, trying to disrobe while keeping one hand on the other, and at the end of it they both fall to Jon’s bed in a fit of laughter. He rolls over on his side and brushes her hair out of her face, his eyes going soft and serious for a moment. His thumb brushes against her lips and Sansa parts them, taking it in. 

“I know you were ill used,” he says, his voice low and rough with emotion. “I’ll not be another man to abuse you, Sansa. I’m not like that. We don’t...we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you’re willing to trust me, though, I can show you some things you might like to do with me.” 

No man has ever put it to her that way before. She hadn’t expected Jon to be any other way, really, but hearing it said aloud seems to still some of the rapid beating of her heart. Ramsay is writ large upon her even if she wants his memory to fade and she’s afraid even Jon’s good touches will break her where she’s gone brittle and hollow inside. 

Sansa stands and pulls off her shift and smallclothes, her last barriers, and stands quietly before him. Unlike the way Baelish looked at her, hungry for her, or the way Ramsay had looked at her with malice, Jon had none of those things. His eyes are soft and his touch is curious. He traces his thumb along the sweep of her collarbones and drags his fingertips between her breasts. He brushes the back of one hand against the column of her neck and sets curious fingers to tease and rouse her nipple into a hard peak. 

Sansa closes her eyes when his mouth finds her nipple, tongue laving it and lips tugging. She’s never felt like this before, not even once, and she feels her knees going a bit weak. Jon’s hands slide down her back and cup her bottom, pulling her that much closer to him. Sansa reaches out a hand to steady herself and claspes it against his shoulder. 

“No one’s ever roused you for him,” Jon says. She shakes her head swiftly. No one has ever done this with her. Sansa hadn’t thought it necessary, really, but she feels like every brush of Jon’s fingertips against her skin sends heat pooling between her legs. “No one’s ever seen to your pleasure.” Sansa shakes her head again. No, no one has ever done this. Not at all. 

“You’re not a thing to be used and put away when broken,” Jon murmurs. “You’re something to be cherished. You’re my wife.” 

Jon slips his arms around her and carries her to the bed, laying her there so gently that Sansa wants to weep from all the love and attention he’s given her. This is what she’d been promised as a girl. She’d been promised someone brave and gentle and strong and all she’d ever received were monsters with pretty faces. She flinches when he parts her thighs and Jon stops for a moment, directing her to look at him. 

“I’ll not go on if you want to stop.” Sansa shakes her head. “No, I don’t...I just react that way. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m afraid of ghosts.” Jon kisses her hip, then the outside of her thigh. He parts her with gentle fingers and Sansa clenches her hands in the furs to keep from trembling. She doesn’t want him to stop even if she is afraid because she doesn’t want the only man to have bedded her to be one who bedded her cruelly. Jon pulls his hand away and she wants to beg him to continue, that she won’t be afraid, except it’s replaced with his mouth instead.

Nothing could have prepared her for this. Jon’s tongue is at once seeking and demanding and Sansa hardly knows what to give him in response. Her hips buck clumsily at the first touch of his tongue against a painfully sensitive spot and he lifts his head and gives her a cheeky grin from betwixt her thighs. 

“It’s all right, Sansa. Lets me know where I ought to focus a bit more and where I ought to leave alone.” He looks so damnably pleased with himself that she wants to be angry and she certainly feels ashamed but she doesn’t think a bride ought to feel ashamed at feeling good. If it was meant only for men to feel good, then why did women have so many children? Surely some of them must have enjoyed it. 

He licks and sucks at her until she feels as though she must have drenched his face with it and as much as she wants to hide in shame, her hips writhe and she feels as though she’s shattering instead. Afterward, her heartbeat seems loud in the quiet room and all she can smell is the scent of _her_ above the wax from the candles and the leather scent Jon carries on his skin. Everyone will know she did this and it makes her face go red in shame. 

Jon, for his part, is shameless and wipes his beard against the furs before coming up alongside her, tugging her back against his chest. His hand is searching her out like lines on a map, fingertips touching every rise and fall of her body. His mouth is hot against her ear when he pushes her thigh forward and he’s _there_ , hot and hard against her. She’s never done it like this before and she doesn’t know how it works. 

“How will you...oh.” Sansa is silenced when Jon rocks his hips up against her and she feels the length of his cock slide between slick folds. He hasn’t gone into her yet, no, but he’s miming it with the movement of his body. Another pass, then another, then she feels the very tip of him press into her for a moment before slipping away. She’s still so wet that she can hear the rhythmic sounds of his body pressing into hers and it rouses her more rather than frightens her. 

“In, now,” he warns her with a hot breath against her ear and when he surges against her this time, he slips into her. One of his hands is gripping her thigh as he pushes into her and the other is above their heads, tangled in the halo of her hair. Sansa whimpers a bit when he presses into her the first time but there’s no pain, only the strangeness of having been filled after so long without. She makes a strangled sort of sound that causes him to flip her beneath him, eyes searching hers.

“No...no, I only...it felt nice,” Sansa tells him. There’s no lie in it, none at all, and Jon slips one of his hands between them to guide him back into her. Once he’s seated deep in her again, he lifts his hand to cup her cheek, the other pinning her hand above her head so he can tangle his fingers with hers. When they’re in this position, they can kiss, and Sansa kisses him until he pulls away with a muffled groan and spills in her. 

They sleep tangled in one another, unwilling to let go, and Sansa sleeps the best she’s slept in longer than she can remember.

***

The day that Daenerys Targaryen takes leave of Winterfell, three moons after the wedding, she reminds Jon of his duty. He is the last male Targaryen and the last one of them to produce heirs. His firstborn will be heir to the Iron Throne and will be turned over to Daenerys as soon as he or she is weaned.

“I don’t want the child to consider anyone but me a mother,” she reminds them, taking flight from Winterfell from atop Drogon’s back. Rhaegal follows, just as menacing, and the rest of her party is to travel on foot to King’s Landing. 

Sansa knows she’s carrying a secret in her womb, a secret that will start another war, and the only thing she can hope is that Daenerys does not survive a war with Cersei. She won’t be so underhanded as to give Cersei intelligence, no, but she did slip a few things into Tyrion’s keeping just in case he was spying for his sister. Just in case.

“We’ll change her mind,” Jon says diplomatically. “Maybe the child can foster there or something and Daenerys can name them heir in a ceremony.” 

Sansa doesn’t trust that. This is where she’s different from Jon, she thinks, because Jon is still bright and beautiful and believes in good and she’s brittle inside. Sansa is hollow in all the places he isn’t. Sansa is willing to be underhanded to get what she wants. 

Daenerys Targaryen will never step foot again in Winterfell.


End file.
